Safety
Oakland City Councilmember’s Noel Gallo’s appeal that “Every city in the U.S. has a curfew” drew boos and yelling from the packed council chambers as his controversial anti-crime strategy was roundly condemned by citizens and officials alike.
At issue: Gallo’s proposed citywide curfew from 10 pm to 6 am seven days a week and from 8:30 am to 1:30 pm on school days. It would make it illegal for youth to be in public or in businesses during those hours. Although the proposed ordinance was aimed at curbing offenses like prostitution and human trafficking, many speakers Tuesday night passionately argued against it for criminalizing all youth.
Saturday’s “unconference” at Oakland City Hall featured more than a dozen workshops ranging from the city budget, to neighborhood crime issues, to the digital divide, and open data. Over a hundred technology professionals, city staff, local citizens, and business leaders came together to discuss the often-rocky relationship between technology and local government.
The second annual CityCamp Oakland comes out of a surging tech community in Oakland and a city government looking to become a leader in civic technology. The conference was organized by OpenOakland, a civic hacking group born out of Code for America, the national non-profit that pairs young programmers with local governments.
The satellite would use infrared sensors to detect fires as small as one quarter of an acre in size and could scan the entire Western US in under three minutes.
There’s something in the water in Oakland.
But thanks to several local, state and federal agencies, it’s being cleaned up. On Monday, a 105-foot tugboat, nicknamed “Captain Al,” emerged from the depths of the Oakland Estuary where it had been resting – and rusting – for over a decade.
The quiet but vibrant Telegraph Avenue in the northwest side of Temescal is lined with busy coffee shops, small candlelit restaurants and thrift shops. It is a prime location for mugging — mostly cell phone snatching — in a neighborhood that is seeing robberies go up. The response to these crimes is dividing the neighborhood.
“Urban Shield is the largest full-scale exercise in the nation,” said Sgt. J.D. Nelson, Alameda County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) public information officer. The event was created by ACSO seven years ago and has grown each year. This year, Nelson estimates that more than 5,000 people participated from across the state, country and world.
Assembly Bill 999, sponsored by Democrat Rob Bonta of Oakland, would have required the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to develop a five-year plan to offer condoms in all California prisons.
Fire stations throughout Oakland are shutting down for days at a time in response to a cost saving measure that came out of City Hall last year.
The law would have made Oakland the first in California to regulate the registration or licensing of firearms on a local level.